Let's Learn English! Topic: Spare Time Activities! 👩‍🏫🗳️🎉
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Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson about spare time activities. Spare time activities are are the things we do when we have extra time. The things we do when we're not working or sleeping or doing chores or running errands or eating. Um I think I said sleeping already. The time when you can just do something that you want to do. So, I'll give you a lot of examples. Um

By the way, I'm doing this lesson because Jen and I have more spare time in the winter. So, I was thinking of the things we might do in January and February and I put together an English lesson for you. So, once again, welcome to this English lesson about activities and things you can do in your spare time.

Volunteer. If you have spare time, you can volunteer. I know people like my mom who are retired. They sometimes decide to volunteer. When you volunteer, it means you work but you don't get paid or

you usually work on something that benefits your town or other people or an organization in your community. These people it looks like they've decided to volunteer to clean up this area. And

looks like people have thrown their garbage and trash on the ground and so these people have decided in their spare time to volunteer to help clean up this area. So one of the things you can do if you have spare time is you can volunteer. You can give of your time. That's another way we say it in English.

there are many places where you can volunteer. You can volunteer at a thrift store. You can volunteer to help clean things up. You can volunteer to help organize a bake sale to raise money for something. There are many things you can do to help your town or an organization or people in your town.

You could run for office. This is not one that I'm going to do this winter. I have no plans to run for office.

sometimes people who have spare time they think oh maybe I should run for office. Maybe I will be a councillor in my local town. Maybe I'll run for mayor. So this is the phrase we use to run for office. I'm not sure how your country works but here you can be mayor, you can be city councillor, you can be a regional councillor. There's all different levels of government.

And if you want to, you can decide to run for office and you can hopefully get enough votes so people put you in. By the way, it does say vote Bob for mayor. I'm not planning to run for mayor. You could join a club.

So you might have thought this lesson was going to be about all of the different hobbies and things you can do in your spare time. It's a little more general than that. So you can definitely join a club. There are many types of clubs in the world. You could join an English learning club if you could find one. You could join a book club like these people. You might be able to join let me see I'm trying to think. I've recently started doing archery.

So, that's like with a bow and arrow. I could maybe this winter join an archery club and then I would be with other people who like the same thing as me but if you have lots of spare time, you could join a club. You could take up a hobby. I

could decide to go and buy a kite and learn to fly a kite. There are many hobbies in the world. You could learn how to play new games. You could let me see what you could learn to do a little bit of maybe you want to learn how to do crafting like you want to be able to make things out of paper and glue. Um there are many things. You could start collecting stamps. That would be a hobby. But once again, you

If you have spare time, if you have a lot of free time, I'm not sure who has this much time because I certainly don't have a lot of spare time but you could take up a hobby and that's the phrase we use. You take up a hobby. You could join a gym. This is very common in

in January in Canada and in North America and I'm sure in most parts of the world. Many people on New Year's Eve will decide to make a New Year's resolution to work out and to get in shape. And in order to do that, they might join Jim. We have excuse me.

have a local gym in our town and I'm sure memberships go up in the month of January and then probably people slowly stop going to the gym in March or April but if you have spare time you might join a gym in order to build some muscle maybe to run and improve your cardiovascular health your heart health um and you might uh maybe you'll stick it out maybe you'll go for a whole year.

You might take a night class. Now some of you might actually be in this situation. Maybe you work all day. Maybe you're in school all day but you still take a night class. A class that happens at night. Around here night classes usually start around 7 or 7:30 PM. Maybe as late as 8 PM and they're about an hour to 3 hours long. You might be taking an English night class but there are all types of night classes.

know people used to take computer night classes 10 or 15 years ago when computers were still new for older people. So you might at that time you would take a night class in order to learn more about it. Here in my part of Canada there are often there's a mailing that comes from the local college with a list of adult night classes that you can take where you can improve your

Maybe you want to learn Italian. Maybe you want to improve your English. Maybe you want to learn a new skill. You can take a night class in order to do that.

Maybe you just need to catch up on things. Maybe you've been really busy for a period of time and you're behind on laundry. You're behind on paying the bills. You're behind on getting the house ready for winter if you are in Canada and you just need to catch up on things. This happens to Jen and I sometimes. In the fall from September until the end of October, we're both really busy.

Jen is really busy on the farm and I'm really busy at school. So, in November, we start to catch up on things. Maybe we're behind on the laundry and there's other little things. I'm sure that you have a similar situation sometimes where you're just a little bit behind.

you might deep clean something. So, we keep our house relatively clean. We vacuum, we do the dishes, we do laundry, we keep the rooms in our house as tidy as possible.

sometimes we just want to do a deep clean. This means you really clean the room. Like you move all the furniture when you vacuum. You wash the windows. You dust all of the areas where maybe you didn't dust before. Like on top of the picture frames.

might when you do a deep clean you might dust there but you can see this lady is ready to do a deep clean. She has a garbage bag. She is just cleaning things up. She's wearing her cleaning gloves and an apron. She's ready to do a deep clean. So again this is a little more than just your regular weekly cleaning. This is where you spend a couple hours in one room making it as clean as possible.

You might decide to reconnect. You know as you get older it gets a little bit harder to talk with your friends especially friends from a long time ago.

sometimes when you have some spare time you decide to reconnect with friends. You might give them a phone call. You might send them an email. You might get together. Okay did you hear all those? You could give them a phone call. You could send them an email. You could get together in person and just to enjoy each other's company. So you might reconnect with people who you haven't talked to for a while. Um this is something generally older people do but I do know that if you if

you're in your mid-twenties or you know when you're in school eventually school ends and people go their separate ways that's how we say it in English people go their separate ways and sometimes it's nice to reconnect with people and you might just hang out with friends I know for someone my age when I was younger and when I wasn't married and didn't have kids I saw my friends a lot

Nowadays, it's a little more challenging. I have a job. I have to provide for my family. I'm quite busy. It's hard for me to find time to hang out with my friends. In fact, we used to go see a movie once or twice a year and we haven't even done that lately. So, this is maybe something I should do

this winter. I should maybe go see a movie with my friends because there's a couple of them. There's one friend I see quite often. There's a couple I haven't seen for a while. So that would be fun. Learn a skill. So this is similar to take up a hobby but hobbies can be relaxing. Hobbies can be where you learn a skill but the actual learn a skill or learn a new skill means you're learning something useful.

this person is maybe learning how to do woodworking. Maybe uh they're making a shelf or a chair or something out of wood. You could learn how to, you could do pottery. You could learn how to make things out of clay on um the thing that spins when you make stuff out of clay. Spindle?

sure what it's called. And you might and then fire it in an oven. So you could learn to fix things. You could learn to make things. You could learn a skill. Something that's helpful in life. Uh learning English would fall under this category as well. We consider speaking English as a second language as a good skill to have. Um so you might decide you're going to learn a skill. And just so you know if

There are some hobbies that aren't skills. Like flying a kite isn't really considered a skill. Reading a book for pleasure like for enjoyment or being watching movies as a hobby isn't really a skill but sometimes you're actually learning how to use tools or how to make something or fix something. You could join a league. So this is a little different as well than taking up a hobby. So I could do

start bowling. This is the game of bowling. As a hobby, maybe I go with friends once a month and I go bowling but if I join a league, it means I'm probably going once a week. It means I'm competing against other people and

I'm trying to win the season. There's probably a season. So, you could join a tennis league. You could join a football league. You could join a bowling league. Generally, this means you're Jen played in a volleyball league a few years ago. Generally, this means you're playing some kind of sport or some kind of competitive activity like you can join a darts league where you throw darts as well. Um but yeah, I have not I

in a league for a very long time. I was in a soccer league like an amateur soccer league many many years ago. Like 25 years ago when I could still run fast. Um but you might decide hey I really like bowling or I really like throwing darts. I'm going to join a league and every Tuesday night I'm going to go and compete against other people.

You might decide to renovate. So this is something Jen and I have done in the past. We're not planning to do it this winter. We've spent most of our renovation budget on new windows for parts of our house but you might decide that one room in your house is

you want to change things. Maybe the walls are getting old and have holes in them. Maybe it just needs a coat of paint. Maybe you need to replace the windows and the wood that goes around the windows. Maybe you just want it to look a little nicer. So, you decide. So, you decide to renovate. Um renovations tend to cost a bit of money.

They usually cost more money than what you were expecting but it usually makes that room in your house much nicer. Maybe you want to put new cupboards in your kitchen. Maybe you want to put a new sink in your bathroom. All of that would be considered small renovations. So, you are changing how your house looks. You might just want to rearrange.

So, this is much simpler and much cheaper but you might have a room in your house. Let's say when you go to your living room. Um maybe the couch and some tables and plants and maybe a TV have all been in the same spot for many many years. You might decide to rearrange. Jen and I do this quite often in the winter. In January, we're like, hey, we're kind of

bored with how this room is arranged. Let's move the couch to this side. Let's put the plants closer to the window. Let's not have a TV in this room. Let's make this room a room for quiet reading or for conversation. So, you might decide to rearrange a room

so that it looks different. Um and then you might even do a little bit of um not sure I would call it a renovation but some touch-ups like a coat of paint is probably a very very minor renovation. I'm not sure I would even call it that. Um although I think I did in the last slide but you might just decide to rearrange a room.

And then we also have a phrase to spruce up. You might decide to spruce up a room. Or you might spruce up your kitchen table and chairs. This might mean you paint them. Maybe you sand them. Maybe you just clean them really well. Maybe you have a wobbly chair that you fix. You're just sprucing things up a bit so that they are more usable. Um I'm trying to think of something else I might spruce up. Um it's kind of a funny phrase, isn't it? It means you

more than just cleaning. Like if I was to sell a car I might spruce up the car before I sell it. That means I'm going to clean it really well. I'm going to maybe fix the window that doesn't work. Um I'm going to try and make the car as new as possible or as new looking as possible. You you might just rest. I know for some people especially people who have very very physically demanding jobs. I

Like my son mows lawns. He has a lawn mowing business.

It's a very physical job. So, he has to have muscles and he walks a lot, 25, 30,000 steps a day. Um so usually when he has a bit of spare time, he will rest. So, one thing is he doesn't mow lawns in the winter. So, he usually takes a couple weeks to just rest because I think it's a very physically demanding job. So, that's a new phrase maybe for some of you.

I do not have a physically demanding job. As a teacher, I do not lift things very often. I don't carry things. I don't push things. Um I like I am not going to become Arnold Schwarzenegger by uh by teaching high school. Um maybe I carry my laptop to class.

But if you work in the construction industry or if you have a job in a factory where you are always lifting things, we say it's a physically demanding job. So, this is a relatively new one. You might do some meal prep. So, this is something that I hadn't heard about till about three or four years ago. Meal prep is when you prepare meals in advance for a time in your life when you might be busy.

So this person is making meals probably for the next five days. It's a little bit boring but it's also very efficient. And usually when you do meal prep you're preparing meals that you can freeze and then heat up later. So I know one of my colleagues at school makes breakfast burritos.

He's very busy in the morning. His wife and him both have jobs and they're on their way out the door. So, they made breakfast burritos. So, they got like a tortilla and it has egg and sausage and cheese and other things in it and they make these all in advance for a whole month and then they freeze them and then they can grab one and microwave it every morning.

So, you might do some meal prep. Jen and I do this a little bit in the sense that sometimes on the weekend when we're really busy, we might prepare a lot of different kinds of meat uh like hamburger and chicken and freeze it to use in meals for the coming week but if you have spare time and you know you're going to be busy, you might do some meal prep in order to get ready for that busy time.

self-improvement. So self-improvement refers to any activity that you do to make yourself a better person. So self-improvement might be working out so that you're stronger. Self-improvement might be reading one book every month. Self-improvement might be reading a self-help book to help you with something you're not good at. Self-improvement might be thinking about something you don't do well.

learning how to do it better. Let's say I wasn't very good at communicating. Let's say I was a boss at a workplace. I'm self-improvement for me might be learning how to manage my employees better by communicating better. So, anytime you make yourself a better person, we call it self-improvement. It usually means you're gonna read a book to become better at something or take a class but you are going to improve yourself.

You could also reinvent yourself. Now this is a little more extreme. Let's say I decided to reinvent myself. That might mean that I buy all new clothes. I stop wearing blue button up shirts with short sleeves. I grow my beard really long and I grow my hair out. That would be me reinventing myself. Maybe I sell my minivan and I buy a sports car. So basically I

becoming in a small way a slightly different person. Um but some people reinvent themselves in a good way. Let's say you didn't go to college.

you decide you're going to reinvent yourself. Maybe you have long hair, a beard, you can't, you whenever you have a job, you you quit after a while, you decide, I'm going to reinvent myself. I'm going to become a mechanic. I'm going to go to school for two years. I'm going to shave my hair nice and short. I'm going to shave my beard or I'm going to cut my hair short and shave my beard and I'm going to reinvent myself. So, again, definitely more extreme than self-improvement but if you reinvent yourself, you try to

change drastically what you look like and what you do. You might just this should say sort through your clothes but you can say sort your clothes. There's a slightly different connotation. When you sort through your clothes it might mean that you're putting the clothes you want to keep on one side and putting the clothes that you don't wear anymore and want to get rid of in a box.

Usually once every two years I sort through my clothes. I find the clothes that I don't wear anymore and I usually donate them to a thrift store. Um but definitely this is something that I enjoy and

enjoy this when I'm done doing it. I don't enjoy doing it all the time. But it results in more closet space and more room in your drawer. If you sort through your clothes. Um I need to do this uh this winter. I have a few shirts that you've probably noticed I haven't worn any uh recently because they're starting to get small holes. The fabric is so thin. Um but uh yeah. I

You might travel. This is one that you might have guessed. It's hard to travel when you're busy. If you are a full-time student, if you have a full-time job and if you don't have a lot of spare time, it can be hard to find time to travel. So, many people when they have spare time will travel and see different parts of the world.

might make plans. So, this is kind of a funny one. It sounds very generic but we often in English say, are you making plans for the weekend? Do you have plans for the weekend? Oh, I'm going to make plans for Christmas break because I have two weeks off. Um what are you going to do in your spare time? Oh, we made plans to visit a lot of people. So, it simply refers to a

thinking about something you're going to do in the future and and putting it on a calendar. Uh Jen and I made plans for this coming weekend. Uh we're going to Toronto um and we're not seeing the Taylor Swift concert. That's not why we're going to Toronto. I don't have tickets. Uh but we are going to Toronto. So, we made plans to do that in our spare time. I would never do this but you might try something new and again, this is similar to

you know, learning a new skill, taking up a hobby, etc, etc. Um but you might just try something new. When Brent from American English with Brent visited me uh over a year and a half ago, um we uh tried something new for me. Ziplining, brand new. I'm pretty sure it was new for Brent. Um but sometimes when you have spare time, you're like, oh, I've never tried hang gliding before. I've never gone scuba diving before. I should try something new.

And then you might host something. So, this is an interesting word. You might go to a party. You might go to someone's house to play games. You might go to someone's house because you're in a book club. The person who is hosting is the person who is inviting people to their house. If I have a party, I would say to my colleagues, oh, I'm going to host a party this weekend. Do you want to come?

If I was in charge of a book club, I might say, oh, I host a book club once a week at my house and people come and they talk about books. This person, I'm going to guess, maybe this is like a wine and cheese club and I think the girl in the middle is the host. So maybe once a month, her friends come over and they try some really nice wine or have some cheese. So when you host something, you plan it

And it usually happens at your house, okay? It's usually something that's happening where you live, at your house or apartment.

you might just get some fresh air. This is one of my favorite things to do. Um just be outside. Um when you're in a house or in an apartment, you're not breathing fresh air but when you're outside uh in a park or out in nature, you can breathe some fresh air. So, when you get some fresh air, it usually makes you a lot happier. Uh you might knock something off your to-do list. I'm sure all of you have a to-do list that

It's a list of all of the chores and errands that you need to do that day or that week or that month or that year. And so when you have some spare time it's nice to look at the to-do list and knock something off the list. To do something from your to-do list. Last week my to-do list said unhook the irrigation pump and put it in the house so it doesn't freeze. So I got that done.

also on my to-do list was to have the snow tires put on each of the vans. So, we had that done as well. And then, lastly, you might break a bad habit. I'm not sure if any of you do this bad habit but sometimes when you're really busy, it's hard to break a bad habit. So, there's a tiny little spider right here. Um sometimes if you are someone who for me, I

I eat badly when I'm really busy and so when summer comes and I have more spare time, it's easy for me to break that bad habit. It's a lot easier for me to eat healthy in the summer but this is how humans work, right? When you are working full-time, when you are in school full-time, it can be stressful and then you might have bad habits like this one that are hard to break but sometimes when you have some spare time, you can

Figure out a way to break that bad habit. Hi, Bob the Canadian here. Thank you for listening to this English podcast lesson. If you would like to support me in the work that I do as an online English teacher, please visit patreon.com slash bobthecanadian.